Evanston Woman Pleads Guilty To Securities Fraud In Insider Trading Case

CHICAGO — An Evanston woman admitted that she bought stock based on insider information she learned about a pending acquisition by her husband's company.

Denise Grevas, 60, pleaded guilty in federal court Thursday to one count of securities fraud, acknowledging she illegally purchased hundreds of thousands of dollars of stock after learning confidential information during a phone call with her spouse in August 2019.

"During that phone call, [her husband] told [her] that he was going to be busy at work for the foreseeable future given his work on a due diligence project," according to the plea agreement Grevas signed.

Grevas' husband worked as a senior manager in the human resources division of the Danish pharmaceutical company Lundbeck, which had primary North American offices in Deerfield. He had just learned the company was about to purchase Alder BioPharmaceuticals, a publicly traded company based in Washington state.

"During that conversation, [he] told [her] the name of the acquisition target — [Alder]. Given the nature of this conversation, [Grevas] know that [her husband] expected she would maintain the confidentiality of this information and would not use or share it," according to the plea.

Instead, she purchased hundreds of thousands of stock in Alder across at least five brokerage accounts, some of which belonged to her families members.

"Because the acquisition of [Alder] by [Lundbeck] was material nonpublic information, and given the fact that [Grevas] learned of this information in confidence from [her husband], [she] was prohibited from using this information to trade in [Alder's] stock," it said.

After the takeover offer was announced in September 2019, Grevas sold all of the illegally purchased stock she had bought, generating a profit of nearly $287,000. As part of the plea, she agreed to pay back that money.

Grevas is also facing a civil action filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission. In light of Grevas' guilty plea, attorneys for the regulatory agency reported in a court filing Tuesday that they will provide an update about their plans for the case by Nov. 2.

Securities fraud carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, but preliminary sentencing guidelines included in the plea agreement call for Grevas to be sentenced to between two and two and a half years in prison. Her sentencing hearing has been scheduled for Feb. 23.

Earlier: Evanston Woman Accused Of Insider Trading On Over $280K Of Stock